THQ is dead: cancels all 2014 games including Warhammer MMO, looks for buyers

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To All THQ Employees:We now have the answers we've been seeking through our financial restructuring and Chapter 11 case. While much will be written, here are the facts of the bids and auction that occurred :

Yesterday morning, we received a competing bid for the operating business, along with Clearlake's offer, and numerous offers for separate assets. During an auction process that lasted over 22 hours, the final conclusion was that the separate-asset bids would net more than a single buyer for the majority of the company.

Shortly, we will, present the results to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, which must concur with our assessment.

The proposed sales of multiple assets is as follows :

Sega agreed to purchase Relic

Koch Media agreed to purchase Volition and Metro

Crytek agreed to purchase Homefront

Take 2 agreed purchase Evolve and

Ubisoft agreed to purchase Montreal and South Park

We expect these sales to close this week.

Some assets, including our publishing businesses and Vigil, along with some other intellectual properties are not included in the sale agreements. They will remain part of the Chapter 11 case. We will make every effort to find appropriate buyers, if possible.

What this means for employees

We expect that most employees of the entities included in the sale will be offered employment by the new owners. However, we cannot say what these owners may intend, and there will likely be some positions that will not be needed under the new ownership. You should receive notice this week or early next week if the new owners intend to extend employment to you. Please note that the terms of your new employment, including pay and benefits, may be different from the current terms of your employment with THQ.

If you are an employee of an entity that is not included in the sale, we regret that your position will end. A small number of our headquarters staff will continue to be employed by THQ beyond January 25 to assist with the transition. THQ has sufficient resources to pay these employees for work going forward, and we will be contacting these employees immediately to ensure their continued employment during this transition period. We are requesting the ability to offer certain severance pay to minimize disruption for employees of non-included entities as they determine the next steps in their careers.

We know you will have many questions about this news. We'll be meeting tomorrow when we return to talk through this announcement and to answer any questions you have. You will receive a benefits fact sheet and FAQs with answers to some questions that may be on your mind. Please review these materials closely.

A personal note

The work that you all have done as part of the THQ family is imaginative, creative, artistic and highly valued by our loyal gamers. We are proud of what we have accomplished despite today's outcome.

It has been our privilege to work alongside the entire THQ team. While the company will cease to exist, we are heartened that the majority of our studios and games will continue under new ownership. We were hoping that the entire company would remain intact, but we expect to hear good news from each of the separate entities that will be operating as part of new organizations.

For those THQ employees who are part of entities that are not included in the sale, we are confident that the talent you have displayed as part of THQ will be recognized as you take the next steps in your career.

Thank you all for your dedication and for sharing your talent with the THQ team. We wish you the best of luck and hope you will keep in touch.

Who the hell was SEGA biding against?
Why was the Montreal studio sold for only 2.5 million?!

I imagine a lot of groups wanted Relic. Even Space Marine which was "meh" was pretty warmly received and was only bashed for being repetitive, not for being bad. And pretty much any RTS with Relic's name on it will sell a lot, so the less scrupilous groups might want to run it into the ground for a quick buck.

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If you want me on either service, I suggest PMing me here first to let me know who you are.

Who the hell was SEGA biding against?
Why was the Montreal studio sold for only 2.5 million?!

Do keep in mind, SEGA also bought CoH and CoH2 is nearing release, so they bought a studio, an IP and an already developed game in which THQ probably spent a lot of money, but SEGA will get to release at a ridiculously low cost (aside from the auction money).

Edit: SEGA was bidding against Zenimax. So basically, against Bethesda.
From Kotaku:

THQ Montreal was so cheap because they've only produced one game: the WiiU port of Darksiders II. As far as I know they didn't even have a pre-alpha gameplay demo of 1666. Other than that, they were THQ's least competent (and as of this past December, only) QA facility.

I'm still curious about what happened with all the other owned IPs that weren't in development. Were Red Faction and Summoner bundled with Volition and Saints Row? Does Homeworld stay with Relic? Or do those all end up in creditor limbo like System Shock?

I think that mostly depends on who owned what. I imagine Volition have Ref Faction and Saints Row, but I'm not sure if Relic got back the rights to Homeworld or if they belonged to THQ. It's very likely the franchise is now dead, unless it's sold later on in the remaining THQ assets, if they do indeed have them.

As an aside, a friendly reminder: If you have any keys for THQ games that you've not currently applied to [enter service/Steam here], you might want to add them before any complication arises.

EDIT: Wow, Relic's went up pretty damn high. What does this mean for Turtle Rock then? Are they independent? Surely a studio that was being sold off wouldn't be able to bid on something while it in turn was being sold??

Award for "Must Buy Everything" goes to Ubisoft though! Clearly they were a saving grace in a couple of instances.

Wait for the hearing to finish and the documents to go live, then we'll know the fate of smaller IPs. Some might get stuck in limbo, like KoA's Steam version. Maybe Clearlake will end up owning them?
Immortal Throne is worth it.

It's the single most lucrative IP that THQ owned. The Xbox 360 version of Saints Row the Third had as many unique players in one year as Saints Row 2 had in four. If Jason Rubin hadn't canned Saints Row: Enter the Dominatrix, THQ probably would have had a large enough cash injection at the end of the year that they'd have been able to hold off on the Chapter 11 filing until April.

Looks like some bullets were dodged but I don't really understand the Evolve and Volition amounts, there's a huge gap between the runner-up and the winner.

Remember a bid was received to buy the majority of the company outright. So for anyone to get the individual bits they wanted, the sum total of all those bids would have to exceed the outright offer (which may have been around $50 million, looking at those figures).

To complicate that, one of the companies involved in bidding for parts may have been the one that made the total offer, so it would have been in their best interests not to push the bidding up on the individual bits. I might speculate in that case that it was Ubisoft.

So if (for sake of argument) the other properties were locked in, and Koch Media wanted Volition and Take Two wanted Evolve, they would effectively be bidding together against Ubisoft's offer for THQ as a whole. Their combined offers, plus everything already on the table, would have to exceed Ubisoft's offer for the entire company, or Ubisoft would win. Which is why it takes many many hours of negotiations and such as to who should pay how much and what the relative values are and so on.

I just took a cursory glance at the final report. You can view it here.

From the looks of things, Volition were bought alongside Saints Row, but not say, Red Faction or Descent/Freespace. Similarly, Relic were bought with COH, but not say Space Marine or Dawn of War. The latter perhaps makes a bit more sense, considering it's very likely they instead fall under the Games Workshop licensing, so they might be alright. It does suggest, however, that Red Faction could be dead/limbo'd.

Hmm. One theory that I've seen floated is that publishers will try to pick up the not in development stuff during THQ's final liquidation. This auction was just for the studios and projects that actually had some work done. Still worrying. I know THQ actually had tentative plans to do a F2P Homeworld game, finally. I'll be very annoyed if the IP ends up in some creditor's portfolio with no way to actually turn it into a game.

Hmm. One theory that I've seen floated is that publishers will try to pick up the not in development stuff during THQ's final liquidation.

I wouldn't be surprised. Reading elsewhere, Microsoft and EA bought stuff from Midway when they went the same way. Some more stuff to come, surely.

Originally Posted by Wheelz

man the last few pages of this thread have been depressing :(

It's covered the jobs of thousands of people, including the loss of jobs of a few hundred. Not to mention favourite franchises and the like possibly going dead. I will sorely miss Darksiders, unless it is picked up. I was disappointed with DS2, but it was still good and DS1 was a damn good title.